Heads of state at the EU summit celebrate after Theresa May scored an own goal in the pre-meeting entertainment.
Photograph: Kacper Pempel/Reuters

Not even catching a glimpse of Iain Duncan Smith in the Daily Mail cleverly comparing British business to Nazi collaborators – irony meters went off the scale – could spoil Theresa May’s morning. Flying to Brussels was the prime minister’s very own “me time”. A time when she could put her feet up and no one or nothing could get to her for an hour or so. Several members of her cabinet could have launched blue-on-blue attacks. One of two might even have resigned. And she would be none the wiser. Which is just the way she liked it.

Life was about to get better still. Her two-day visit to the European council was about to merge into a four-day weekend because she literally had nothing to do. The summit was meant to be the time when the prime minister spelled out the final details of Britain’s withdrawal agreement with the EU but what with one thing and another – mainly her incompetence and cluelessness – this had been pushed back yet again.

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May receives footballer Eden Hazard's shirt from Belgian PM – video

She was now hoping she would be in a position to announce the terms of the withdrawal six months after Britain had withdrawn. So she could sit back, kick off her shoes and let the other EU leaders rabbit on. They might all get round to discussing Brexit once she had left, but it worked better for everyone that way. It was the only way any progress could be guaranteed.

Shortly after landing, May stopped off for a coffee. It was customary to let the more important EU leaders turn up first, so she had time to kill and could watch them arrive on TV. There were Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel embracing one another. May felt a small pang of sadness. There was a time when she might have been a member of the inner circle. There again, she wasn’t even a member of the inner circle in her cabinet any more.

A little later, the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, appeared and gave a mini press conference. After talking about immigration, he was asked for his thoughts on how Brexit was progressing. “I don’t want to say it’s apocalyptic but…” he said. But it was apocalyptic. Next came the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar. “We had been expecting progress … any progress,” he said unhelpfully. Was Britain really being serious in its negotiations. “We’ll have to wait and see.” If there had been anything left alive in Theresa, it too would have died at that point.

Then the prime minister got the nod. There was a spare five minutes on the red carpet if she wanted to use it. May wandered purposefully towards the only microphone that wasn’t switched on so her opening words went unrecorded. Eventually the sound cut in and she could be heard saying how happy she was that the summit was prioritising the prohibition of chemical weapons. Everyone looked blank. They had imagined immigration was the main subject up for discussion.

Next came the Brexit question. “We are making very good progress,” said May. The blank faces turned even blanker. What did she imagine little progress would look like? A reporter pointed out that wasn’t what the other EU leaders were saying. “We’ve been setting things out,” she babbled desperately. “We’re in a strong position … we want to sit down and move at pace.” A snail’s pace.

Once inside the main hall, the Belgian prime minister, Charles Michel, made a beeline for the prime minister. Pulling a Belgian football shirt out of his bag, he thrust it into May’s hands. Which she promptly held up for the cameras. Half time: Belgium 1 (May og), England 0.

“Oh look,” she said. “It’s got a Number 10 on it. I live at Number 10. What a coincidence! Are Belgium playing tonight?”

Michel couldn’t believe his luck and started distributing Belgium scarves to everyone else. Jean-Claude Juncker held his above his head. So, too, did Varadkar. Before long the whole room was pointing at the prime minister and chanting, “You’re shit and you know you are; you’re shit, and you know you are.” Final score: Belgium 27, England 0.